


my heart is gold and my hands are cold

by quarrelthumb



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gen, No Beta We Die Like Dream's Parrots, Pandora's Vault Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quarrelthumb/pseuds/quarrelthumb
Summary: It doesn’t make anysense. His cold doom-oven is floating in a sea of molten rock. It’s paradoxical.“Paradoxical,” he says out loud, syllable by syllable. “Par-a-dox-i-cal.” He doubts that Sam is listening—a prison warden has to have better things to do than listen to the evil green man monologuing in the most secure cell of the most secure prison, even if said green man is the only prisoner and the most reviled scum of the server. It’s just him and the lava and the goddamn cold.
Relationships: Implied Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	my heart is gold and my hands are cold

**Author's Note:**

> the dnf is literally a single line and you could take it as to mean someone else or just completely miss it so don't be too excited about it lol
> 
> also you can interpret the title as you will, either literally or ironically
> 
> this is shorter than i expected because my brain is a wrung-out rag and there's not a single word left in it, just a ":D" bouncing around the cavernous space of my skull like a windows screensaver. i probably should finish my assignments but brain empty no thought. gpa is temporary, memories of the euphoric rush i get when i see that grand total of 3 people have read my fic and thought it worthy to kudos and comment is forever (that's a joke please give at least 0.43 fucks about your gpa that shit's important or something) (but please do kudos and comment if you want thanks i love you)
> 
> anyways yeah enough rambling in the author's note

It’s cold in the vault.

Dream didn’t expect it to be—it’s surrounded by an ocean of _lava_ , for fuck's sake. The cell is swimming in a pool of _bubbling molten rock_. It should be the desert: cracked lips and cracked skin, burning and flaking and bloody—or maybe it should be the jungle: thick air wrapping around and pressing, heavy and syrupy and sticking. It’s bound to be stiflingly warm, at least, if not an outright doom-oven of despair.

But it’s not. It’s cold. Bone-chillingly, soul-leechingly cold. He supposes it works well setting the mood—doom-fridge of despair is an effective aesthetic—but it doesn’t make any _sense_. His cold doom-oven is floating in a sea of molten rock. It’s paradoxical.

“Paradoxical,” he says out loud, syllable by syllable. “Par-a-dox-i-cal.” He doubts that Sam is listening—a prison warden has to have better things to do than listen to the evil green man monologuing in the most secure cell of the most secure prison, even if said green man is the only prisoner and the most reviled scum of the server. It’s just him and the lava and the goddamn cold. Three’s a crowd, two’s a company, and one’s a manipulative megalomaniac contemplating the absurdities of heat while withering away in his own prison. That’s a saying from Confucius (probably).

It’s cold in the vault, and his hands are ice and shaking. He looks at them, mystified. It’s not that cold, is it? It’s just-on-the-side-of-clammy-and-uncomfortable cold, not at-risk-of-hypothermia cold. He’s not even shivering. His fingers still tremble, though, blurry like a low-resolution video, blurry like an unfocused camera. Blurry like myopic vision without glasses.

He blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks again. The world focuses, gradually, and his hands slow and still. Calm and cool and collected. Cold.

God, it’s so fucking cold.

He lets his head thump back against the wall. Obsidian walls and obsidian floors and obsidian ceilings; cold walls and cold floors and cold ceilings. Has it gotten colder? He can’t tell. There’s no thermometers—even if he did have one, he’d probably have thrown it into the lava already, for no other reason than because he’s bored and alone and there’s nothing else to do.

(That’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter. The best way to lie is to believe it. If you think the lie is the truth, you’re not lying. Dream knows—of course he knows. What’s the difference between a lie and a truth? Neither is real, anyway. What happens is the only thing that matters: everything else is irrelevant.)

It’s so cold. Is he going to freeze to death? That’d be pathetic, even more so than Schlatt, who’s dead of a fucking heart attack. He can see the sign already: DREAM, VILLAIN OF THE SMP, DEAD OF HYPOTHERMIA CAUSED BY DYSFUNCTIONAL PHYSICS. The embarrassment of that would be enough to cause a miraculous resurrection for the sole purpose of death by humiliation.

He’s not going to die here.

Dream pushes back against the wall and staggers to his feet. He feels geriatric: pain in his ankles and knees and hips and back. Bodies are not made to sit for so long against such cold—but then again, who fucking cares. He still has time.

He eats a potato—raw, because they’re all raw and starchy and bland. Potato after potato after potato: he’d be sick of them if he could afford to be. It’s not a hardship to only eat one.

He slumps down again, this time closer to the lava. Normally, at this distance, his face would feel scorched, even through the mask. Now, though, the heat just feels soothing. He hugs his knees to his chest and immediately feels stupid for doing so, then feels stupid for feeling stupid. He’s alone. He doesn’t need to menace and manipulate and manspread right now. He’s as alone as he’s ever going to get.

“I’m doing pretty good,” he says to the lava, into the not-silence of burbles and hisses.

No, that doesn’t work.

“I’m doing pretty good?”

No.

“I’m doing pretty _good_.”

No.

“I’m doing pretty good!”

“I’m doing _pretty_ good.”

He’s okay, he’s alright, he’s pretty good.

(Except he’s not.)

But he is! He’s having a blast in this godforsaken doom-oven that has temperature issues.

(He’s not, though. He’s really, really not.)

It’s not so bad in the vault. He has his books, his clock, his potatoes. The cauldron and the potato puddle in the corner. The obsidian and the lava and the fucking cold.

Someone’s going to visit soon, and he won’t be so alone anymore. Tommy will, Dream knows for sure, because Tommy’s a stupid, stupid boy who will always poke the bear. Ranboo, too, except he doesn’t do it out of curiosity.

He can already hear the blustering and posturing and preaching— _Dream, you’re such a big meanie. Dream, you’ve hurt my feelings. Dream, I hate you._ On and on and on. The young fools—aren’t they _adorable_?

“I’m doing pretty good,” he says again. “I’m doing pretty good. I’m doing pretty good. I’m doing pretty good. I miss my friends, though.”

He has to get the inflection right. He needs to sound perfect.

“I miss my friends,” he says. “I miss _my_ friends. I miss my _friends_.”

Can he even call them his friends anymore? They were, at one point. He knows that. They were friends. Now, though, he isn’t so sure. (It doesn’t matter, though.)

Maybe Sapnap might visit, if he doesn’t axe Dream to death the second he sees him. Maybe he’ll even bring news with him. Maybe he’ll even say Dream, you’re right. He’ll say Dream, we’re waiting for you. He’ll say Dream, we miss you. Dream, we’re getting you out. Dream, we still care about you. Dream, he still loves you.

Maybe.

Probably not, though—but it’s okay. He doesn’t need them; he never did. He still has time to make it perfect, make it right, and that’s what matters. Not the children, not his friends, not Sam or Bad or Puffy or Quackity or Karl or anyone else who thinks they know him. None of them understand. He's the only one who knows what's best; he's the only one who's able to do what it takes. It’s his server, after all. It’s the Dream SMP. It’s _his_. He knows what to do. He knows how to fix everything.

He still has time.

He still has time.

There still is time.

He shivers, shifts closer to the lava.

God, he’s freezing.

It’s cold in the vault.


End file.
